


Recessional

by Sylenis



Series: Don't be a Stranger (Kidge AU) [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Post S8, a bit piney, can be read as purely platonic tbh, not canon compliant bc screw DW, set on altea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-24 03:10:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18160700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylenis/pseuds/Sylenis
Summary: Oh, words, like rain, how sweet the sound..."Well anyway, " she says, "I'll see you around..."The war is over. Keith is set to start work on his relief aid plans. The others will be on their intergalactic diplomacy mission.Set two years before First Visit.





	Recessional

**Author's Note:**

> If you only ever check out one thing I recommended, please check out the song Recessional. "She" reminds me so much of Pidge, and it just shouts of a quietly pining Keith. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGKicxfFtsw

*

 

"It's beautiful here, right?"  
  
Keith turned where he sat to see Pidge, staring out over the fields of juniberries and other flowers before looking back down to grin at him, hair fluttering around her face in the wind.  
  
"I mean, Allura always told us how beautiful Altea was, but even her stories and holograms didn't do it justice."  
He hummed in agreement as she sprawled to the grass next to him, before answering. "I thought you didn't like the outdoors."  
  
"Egh, it's quiet." There was a tease to her tone and he allowed her a small smile. "A little moment of peace before you go jetting off again into danger, huh?"

  
  
Many long conversations, meetings and arguments later, yes. The imminent danger may be gone, but there were still Galra forces occupying far too much of the universe for Keith's liking. Faction-less warlords and stalwart followers of Zarkon alike were still causing misery and sucking planets dry. The Blades and other galaxy forces were working to free them, but what happened after they were freed and the operatives slipped back out to the next planet?  
  
Like the Balmera, many people had been under the clawed thumbs of the Galra for generations. Others not as long, but Keith had seen enough to know their troubles weren't over the moment the active soldiers were driven out. They were left drowning in a lack of supplies, food and medicine.   
  
The plan Keith had put to Kolivan was simple, or should have been. He'd expected red tape from the Garrison, that's why he'd gone to the Blades. To provide support to these people. First Aid, nutrition, the tech to help them find their feet again. Actually...  
  
Pidge would be great at that. The occupied planets often had their technology, their communications taken from them and replaced by the Galra's own, guarded centers. If anyone could help quickly restore or reroute the required communications and defenses it was Pidge.   
  
The others, Shiro, Allura, Hunk and Lance were going in the Atlas, to continue with the Voltron Coalition- still so named even as the Lions lay empty- they were going to continue to build relations with other planets, offer the olive branch and unite as many galaxies as possible. Allura was a fierce negotiator and public speaker, captivating entire rooms with her eloquence and grace. Coran a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge and experience as the late King Alfor's best friend and right hand man, even if he was still sometimes unintelligible to Keith even now.   
  
Hunk had his own manner of diplomacy, his earnest and humble manner endearing him to most -if not all- who met him. His genuine curiosity and research into alien cultures, especially their cuisine worked well for him- apparently the way to peoples' hearts was through their stomachs, no matter how many they had or where they kept them.  
  
Shiro shared that modesty, even as Captain of the Atlas. Keith wasn't just imagining his presence as so calming; it was universal. People looked up to him, as a leader, as a voice of reason.  
  
Even Lance was likable, charismatic and able to use his own experiences to empathize. Pidge was... She hadn't said much about this voyage. She had headed meetings with him back on the Atlas, able to make people listen despite her small stature, but would often lose them as she started to ramble, her mind working three steps ahead of even her fast mouth. 

  
  
He should ask her.   
  
She might prefer the slightly more quiet atmosphere among the blades. They were similar in that regard. With certain people silences were awkward, they became deafening. Trying to fill them was not Keith's strong suit, so he was grateful for people like his mother, like Acxa and Shiro, who were content to just be. For Pidge. Happy to just be alone together with their thoughts. Conversations could peter out and there was no need to fill the silence unless they wanted to.  
  
Obviously sometimes they wanted to. Many a night Pidge had rambled at him- rather than to him- about whatever project she was currently stuck on. Verbally laying it out had often helped visualize and process the problems, so at times like that he would just sit and let her rant. it wasn't like she'd not sat through many of his own angry grumblings and ravings.   
The great thing about Pidge had been, unless she really thought he was being a jackass and needed telling so, she would let him run on and on until he ran out of steam, and he never felt like she was judging him too harshly.

Her advice with tactics or strategy was always welcomed. Heck, some of her advice with the more personal problems was even pretty helpful, considering they were both awkward introverts at heart.

  
He'd be able to let her do as she needed with any tech with very little guidance. He trusted her more than any engineer or brain the Blades could provide, it would be a weight off his mind.  
Really, he trusted her with his life; she was correct that there would be danger in his new mission, and it might be helpful to have someone who'd have his back, someone who knew how to work with him.  
And, a small part of him whispered, someone he knew how to live with. A fellow paladin, a member of the little family he'd built. It would be nicer than he'd like to admit to have someone he considered family with him, especially as the rest of his family would be taking off in the other direction.  
   
He  _should_  ask her.

  
  
Pidge was sitting with legs out in front of her, arms curled loosely around her knees, matching his posture and watching the breeze rippling through the flowers, colours swaying like an ocean of greens, pinks and blues. It was still slightly jarring to see her -and the others- in civilian clothing after, how many months- years out in space? In uniform, in armor? She was at ease in her rumpled jeans and flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled back.   
Peace suited Pidge. Of course she burned bright under conflict, ferocious in her resolve and never wavering in her confidence in her abilities, but it was hard sometimes to remember she was just a kid really. Too young to have been caught up in a millennia-long galactic war. She should have spent her teenage years studying, having fun, hanging out with friends and family, her biggest worry being whose turn it was to do the dishes or how to pick from the multitude of schools and universities that would have clamored to admit her. At eighteen she'd already been forced to grow up years ago.  
  
The question died on his lips.   
He realised she had noticed him staring at her, and turned his head away.   
"Something on your mind,  _Captain_?"  
  
"I uh-" He cast around for something to say. "You- you cut your hair?"   
"Oh!" She frowned, as though she'd been expecting him to say something else, and automatically tucked a short lock behind her ear. "Yeah, my mom got on my case about it until I caved and let her take me to a salon. I gotta admit, it's kind of nice not having hair in my face when I'm working." She twiddled nervously with the ends, a replacement for the absent glasses she couldn't fiddle with. "Plus, I guess she had a point about looking the part when I start at the Garrison next week."  
  
"Wait, the Garrison?" Keith stared at her, his mind stopped running, clutching at straws for something to say. She glanced up at him, lips pursed.  
"Yeah, I- I took on a contract. I'm  _sure_ I told you?"  
" _You_  took a contract with the  _Garrison?_ Our Garrison, the Galaxy Garrison?" Pidge Gunderson, who'd hacked her way into the establishment, intent on proving their dishonesty? Who still hadn't quite forgiven them for covering up her family's disappearance, for detaining her father, for burying their head in the sand until the last possible second?  
  
"Yes." Pidge bit out, looking exasperated. "I wasn't going to do it, but..." She tapped her fingers on her knees for a moment, staring at them. "I spent so long, looking for my family, wondering if they were even alive. I left my mom to think I'd run away, or been kidnapped and murdered or something awful like that. And even when I found them again, I barely got a moment before  _they_ thought  _I_ was dead again. With all the fighting, and traveling through space and realities, I just thought... I just wanted..."  
  
"Some time." Keith answered quietly. He understood. He'd been gifted with two whole years of stolen time with his mother, to learn to open up to her, to rebuild the foundations of a relationship with her, and it still wasn't enough. He knew how much Pidge loved her brother, loved her parents. The last few years had been so full of trauma for the Holts. He wondered how it must have felt for Colleen Holt to see her children come home, taller, older, scarred and battle-worn. Her husband hidden away by the Garrison because he'd been declared dead after so long missing in space.   
  
"I wanted some time." Pidge agreed, "and then the Garrison just kept throwing project after project under my nose, trying to tempt me, and I just thought... 'Hey, this is an opportunity to hang on Earth and have some quiet time, just being tossed into my lap!' and it felt like a no-brainer. My dad is on leave, my mom is working on her greenhouses. Matt's going to stay home too for a while, they offered him a bunch of stuff too."  
  
"Pidge, if it works for you..."   
"It's a project upgrading defense systems, so it'll benefit Earth, not just the Garrison. They wanted to make it three years, but I beat them down to one." She turned her head towards him from where her chin had rested on her knees and smirked. "It'll not take nearly as long as they think. I don't have to stay there forever, I just... want a break."  
  
"You deserve a break." He grinned back at her and she huffed a small laugh.  
"I'll be itching for something interesting to do by the end of the contract, I'm sure. And then, who knows? The future is wide open, right?" She closed her eyes as a breeze lifted her hair up and around her face. "I could go into space and help out Allura. I could build my own giant robots. I could sell tech designs for an obscene amount of money and fund the Voltron Coalition and the Blades for millennia, and become one of those weird eccentric Billionaire hermits you hear about on the news that only surface to toss money at weird causes. I could become a housewife with six children."  
  
Keith snorted with laughter, leaning back on his hands as she laughed too. "I'll tell you which one I'm betting on."  
"Eccentric Billionaire?"   
"Got it in one." He grinned.   
  
"I probably won't be a housewife." Pidge mused. "That wouldn't be fair on you guys, working on making the galaxy get along. I mean, what if you want to be a housewife instead of a leader and peacemaker for the Galra? That's no fair."  
"I'm a long way off wanting to be a housewife, Pidge. Trust me, I'm right where I want to be." 

  
  
Flying off on his own while the others stayed together. His hands clenched in the grass and he took a deep breath to steady himself, when a weight hit him in the side. Pidge leaned in between his chest and arm, face pressed into his armor.  
"Should have known you'd choose to hang around and keep fighting for everyone. Remember to take a break sometime yourself, Keith. You've been fighting for so long."  
  
"You're not being selfish for wanting to stick around on Earth for a while." Keith said, knowing exactly what was running through her head. "I'm really glad for you, really."  
Pidge shrugged against him, but didn't respond. He let her lean into him properly, and shifted his arm to make it more comfortable for them both. 

  
  
The afternoon sun was starting to hang a little lower, casting longer shadows through the foliage and tree lines that bordered the fields. The smell of evening was sweet here; flowers and fresh water and something like mint. There was a whiff of coconut whenever Pidge moved and he realised it was her hair, so close to his face, washed and soft and ends trimmed neatly to match her new life.   
The grass was lit up orange and golden in the setting light, the breeze just a little colder and he thought maybe Pidge had fallen asleep as she'd not moved in so long, but when he glanced down she was fiddling with blades of grass between them. At some point he'd let his head loll towards hers, resting his cheek on top of her head as he watched the world go by.  
  
Her communicator beeped and she sat up quickly, and Keith nearly slipped over towards her at the loss of her weight countering his.   
"Damn, that's Matt. Our ride's ready to go, they just need me."   
  
Panic crept over him. They had been just... sitting around for ages. They'd not even spoken in at least an hour. She could have been spending that with the others- with Hunk and Shiro and Allura and Lance and Coran. With her friends.  
"Oh- crap- you should get back to the others and say goodbye." Keith stood up and pulled her to her feet, but she gave him a half smile as she did so.  
  
"I said goodbye already... Before I came to look for you. I..." She shifted, glancing down at her wrist and then back out at the flower fields. "We haven't had a chance to just, hang... in a while, you know? And I don't know when we'll get that chance again so I wanted to find you and just..." She shrugged.  _Just be like this._  
  
"Oh." Keith didn't know what to say. "Well... that's..." He trailed off and she grinned up at him.   
"I just... wanted some time with my family." She nudged him on the arm gently and he laughed once.  
"Thanks, Pidge."   
Her communicator beeped again and her smile slipped a little.  
"I gotta go. Listen, don't be a stranger, OK? You'll know where to find me if you need anything."   
  
"Yeah- yeah." Keith nodded, a little breathless and his mouth worked silently for a moment, trying to find the words as she looked at him. A small part still wanted to ask.  _Hey, in a year, come out with me_. But who knows where either of them would be in a year? Whatever she decided to do with her life- diplomat, scientist, lover, pilot- she'd shine bright whether he was there to shield his eyes in her wake or not.   
  
She was walking away, hands behind her back, kicking at the grass a little as she went. At the gate to the field, she stopped, and looked behind her shoulder. It was just the two of them, standing in a sea of green and red and gold.   
She smiled at him.  
  
"I'll see you around, Keith." 

 

*

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this is very platonic but it's listed in my notes for this AU that this event marks the moment Keith started to pine for Pidge. He misses everyone, and tells himself that he just thinks Pidge would make a great fit for his mission to liberate and help planets get back on their feet, but deep down he just wants to love the hecc out of her.
> 
> Thank you for reading if you did <3 I love seeing comments of what you want these dorks to do next :D
> 
> (recessional gives me the feels, OK??? I drew this while listening to it on repeat! https://twitter.com/FeatherStitched/status/1107789987683147778 )


End file.
